Whether or not an organization will fully benefit from diversity depends on how its members answer the questions, “What do we do with this diversity? Why do we want a diversified workforce?” Organizations must explicitly address these questions if they are to prevent diversity efforts from backfiring and if they are to reap the oft-touted benefits of better performance and productivity. Three organizational diversity paradigms are presented along with the assumptions and practices, pros, and cons of each.

Latinas & Tecnología de la Información is a Spanish-language website for inspiring young Hispanic women, or Latinas, to pursue technology. The website, containing both English-language and Spanish-language resources, provides:

Supervising-in-a-Box Series helps establish supportive and effective relationships with a diverse range of employees. This box explores ways to reduce or remove unconscious bias, discriminatory practices, and institutional barriers while performing supervisory job functions – including recruitment, project management, performance evaluations, feedback processes, and everyday communication. Employee Development focuses on ensuring that employees contribute their best ideas and talents to the team.

More than 40 years of data on authors of ACM conference papers describe women’s contribution to this important aspect of computing professional life. The data show that women’s authorship increased substantially over time, and that relative to their representation in the likely pool of ACM conference paper authors, women Ph.D.s were especially productive. Initial tests indicate that the increase in women’s share of papers was due in large part to the increase in number of women in the community of potential authors.

Employees report that the supervisory relationship is one of the most significant factors in their decision to leave or stay with an organization. Are you, as a supervisor, adequately prepared for this responsibility?

Even if your institution already has a formal training program for supervisors, use Supervising-in-a-Box to create highly productive teams that reduce employee turnover, capitalize on diverse innovative thinking, and ultimately strengthen their bottom lines.

Research shows that even individuals committed to equality harbor unconscious biases that impact everyday decisions and interactions. In the IT workplace, unconscious gender bias can mislead employers, both male and female, to make inaccurate judgments in hiring, performance reviews, and promotion. This case study highlights findings on the differences between letters of recommendation for women and men and gives practical ways to reduce bias when writing letters of recommendation.

This article was published in Open Source Business Resource. With data from successful founders of high-tech companies, we identify traits common to large majorities of them and any gender differences in those traits. There are few.

Members of the Social Science Advisory Board (SSAB) support the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) through their research and knowledge about women and information technology. The depth and breadth of perspectives and approaches that SSAB members and visitors bring to the study of women and computing are illustrated in examples of their recent research projects. In the research summaries that follow, we see expertise across social science fields, and theoretical and empirical issues and findings with implications for diversity and the full participation of wome